The LEGAL CREATION of RACE in AMERICA

When examining history, it seems that a narrative has evolved over time that slavery somehow just happened in the United States due to the need for cheap labor and that Africans were chosen because they could do that labor the best. While this is true, it is far from the full reality of the situation. Like slavery, race took time to be created and accepted by the population and like slavery; race had to be created from a legal framework. For this, we need look no further than colonial Virginia.

It must be acknowledged that there was and still is some debate over whether or not the Africans that came to Virginia in 1619 were slaves or that they slowly, but surely transitioned to slavery. Yet, despite this, there is still evidence that in the mid-1600s, laws were being made to create race.

Interestingly enough, slavery was not originally sought after in colonial Virginia as, “in spite of its seeming superiority, [it] was actually not as advantageous as indentured labor during the first half of the century" [1] due to the high morality of Virginia immigrants. Such morality created a situation where there would be no advantage in owning a person for their entire lives rather than a few years, “especially since a slave cost roughly twice as much as an indentured servant.” [2] Though, this ‘morality’ was in reality due to economics as up until the 1640s, the main crop for Barbados and Virginia was tobacco. However, Barbados made a switch to cotton and then finally sugar in the early 1640s. This discouraged white indentured servants from going to Barbados as “sugar production required such strenuous labor that men would not willingly undertake it.” [3] Thus, colonial Virginia was given an influx of indentured servants.